Democracy Now! stories, posts and pages that relate to the National Security Agency, including interviews with NSA whistleblowers William Binney, Thomas Drake and Russell Tice as well as reporter Glenn Greenwald who exposed the secret PRISM spy operation.

The National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has been given permission leave the Moscow airport where he has been stranded for over a month. Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week after the the Obama administration revoked his passport, leaving him unable to travel to Latin America where he has received offers of asylum. Russian authorities have now granted Snowden provisional authorization to enter Russia while...

As Congress holds its second major public hearing on the National Security Agency’s bulk spying, we speak with Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations. The NSA admitted their analysis of phone records and online behavior far exceeded what it had previously disclosed. "The fact that you now see members of both political parties increasingly angry over the fact that...

In a newly released interviewed conducted just before he came forward early last month, Edward Snowden explains why he has devoted his life to expose how the United States is spying on the world. Snowden says he thinks the biggest revelation to emerge from his leaks is the National Security Agency’s collection of all communications into and out of the United States — despite NSA claims that it only targets foreign traffic. Snowden...

In part two of our interview from Monday, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald details his conversation with National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden over the weekend. Greenwald says he spoke at length with Snowden for the first time since Snowden left Hong Kong last month. "He is enthused about the developments over the last week, both in terms of ongoing revelations and the ongoing debate that he helped trigger about surveillance...

Amidst new revelations of U.S. spying in Latin America and ongoing diplomatic tensions over the asylum efforts of Edward Snowden, we are joined by Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño. Speaking from Quito, Patiño addresses the confusion over Ecuador’s ties to Snowden’s asylum bid after initially granting him a temporary travel document but later calling the action a "mistake." Patiño also comments on the diplomatic...

In this web-only interview, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald reveals he talked to NSA leaker Edward Snowden on Saturday. "He is doing very well in terms of his mindset, his demeanor," Greenwald says. "He is able to follow things online, the debates, as they unfold, and he is feeling very good about the choices that he made." [includes rush transcript]

Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have opened the door to granting asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in a standoff with the United States. The offers came after a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to land in Austria after France and Portugal barred it from their airspace over false suspicions that Snowden was on board. The United States has refused to confirm or deny whether it was...

We begin today’s special on whistleblowers with Edward Snowden, who came forward in June as the man who leaked details about the National Security Agency secret programs to spy on Americans, foreign governments and individuals around the world. He was praised by the country’s best-known whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the Vietnam War. "I think there has not been a more...

While National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has been holed up at a Moscow airport, news outlets are continuing to report on his leaks of classified U.S. documents. The latest disclosures have revealed the NSA spied on European Union offices in Brussels, Washington, D.C., and at the United Nations, as well as on more than 38 embassies and missions. The latest documents also point to a major NSA spy operation targeting European...